Schedule

All future topics are tentative. The farther into the future, the more tentative. However, the exam date is fairly fixed.

Sep 17No Class

Sep 18No Class

Sep 19Introduction

Sep 20Moral Relativism

Sep 21Mecantilism

Sep 24Mercantilism

Sep 25Adam SmithCollapse (p. 1–10)Tragedy of the Commons

Sep 26Game Theory (optimality)

Sep 27Prisoner's Dilemma

Sep 28Supply and Demand

Oct 1Supply and DemandComparative Advantage

Oct 2Comparative AdvantagePareto-Optimality

Oct 3Lab One: Excel

Oct 4Pareto-OptimalityComparative Advantage

Oct 5Trade

Oct 8Quotas &TariffsPopulation Growth

Oct 9Population Growth

Oct 10Lab Two: More Excel

Oct 11Trade

Oct 12Trade

Oct 15Trade

Oct 16Polynesia

Oct 17Radioactive DecayPopulation Growth

Oct 18So Long Sucker

Oct 19No Class

Oct 22Economics

Oct 23Economics

Oct 24Review

Oct 25Review

Oct 26Exam 1

Oct 29Population Growth

Oct 30Population Growth

Oct 31Population Growth

Nov 1Population Growth

Nov 2So Long Sucker

Nov 5Growth

Nov 6Anasazi

Nov 7Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma

Nov 8Lab

Nov 9Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma

Nov 12No Class: Veterans Day

Nov 13Lab

Nov 14Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma

Nov 15Lab

Nov 16

Nov 19

Nov 20

Nov 21No Class: Fall Break

Nov 22No Class: Fall Break

Nov 23No Class: Fall Break

Nov 26

Nov 27

Nov 28

Nov 29

Nov 30

Paper

You have a lot of threads that you can explore in your paper that are related to topics we have discussed in class (in fact, that is why I chose these topics to discuss in class). You may want to provide information from alternative sources to help you write a complete paper. I am working on filling in this list and it will grow with links over the next few days. I have provided partial citations so you can try to get them on your own as well.

Sources that question Jared Diamond’s story of collapse (including his claims that these collapses were the results of poor environmental decision making). Diamond has made a response to some of these claims at Mark Lynas’ website

“A Critique: Jared Diamond’s Collapse Put In Perspective” by Emma Gause in Papers from the Institute of Archaeology, 2014. (PDF)

“The Simple Economics of Easter Island: A Ricardo-Malthus Model of Renewable Resource Use”
by J. A. Brander & M. S. Taylor in The American Economic Review, 1998. Note, you are going to construct this argument from the work you did in the project. In particular, can you compute the percentage decrease in the resource stock that occurs in any one person's lifespan? Were the trees vanishing at a shockingly fast rate? Would there have been any indication that this island was more fragile than the other Polynesian islands? (PDF)

“Why We Question Collapse and Study Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire” by P. McAnany and N. Yoffee in Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire, 2010 (each of these is a portion of the chapter, together, I think they have all the material: PDF and PDF)

If you want to talk about cannibalism, you may want to read “Cannibalism and Easter Island: Evaluation, Discussion of Probabilities, and Survey of the Literature on the Subject” by S. McLaughlin in Rapa Nui Journal, May 2005. To clarify what I said in class, I am not arguing that cannibalism did not occur on Easter Island, I am skeptical of Diamond’s argument that cannibalism became commonplace as the result of a widespread collapse into anarchy and war. (PDF)